Two men … I loved two men that way. Time didn’t matter. Love didn’t keep track of time. It lived in the moment.
Confusion spread across every single face in the room.
“There are probably many labels for what happened to me. A midlife crisis. Maybe I lost my way spiritually and emotionally. Maybe I just hit this emotional wall that I couldn’t get past without letting something—someone go. A fall from grace. A breaking point. Maybe it was as simplistic as being human … truly human. But I snapped. The day Craig died, I let all those tiny rocks push me over the edge. I just … felt like I was crawling out of my skin—completely losing myself to a toxic relationship.
“We fought. Words were exchanged that were driven by anger and pain. Resentment. Exhaustion. Discontentment. It all boiled over. And I asked him for a divorce. He left. And he never came home.”
Kelly handed me a tissue. It was only then that I realized I was crying.
“Thank you.” I blotted my eyes. “I wanted out, but not like that. It was supposed to be my loss … not my children’s loss. I’ve spent the last year figuring out who I am without Craig. And it’s not a shop owner. And when Bella leaves for college next fall, I’m going to feel a little less like a mom. I didn’t set out to have a relationship with Kael. If I’m honest, it was sex. Yes … out of wedlock, sinful sex. And it made me feel so many things. Each one in and of itself doesn’t matter. It was the simple fact that he made me feel. He made me question things I’ve never allowed myself to question because I was raised to not question. I was raised to read the Bible, go to church, and follow the rules obediently. And I did … for many years.”
Kelly rested her hand on one leg as Bethanne rested a hand on my other leg. It pulled more tears from my eyes, and their kindness made my heart bleed a little more.
“So I need to step back and find my way, allow myself to really see things and not blindly follow. Because … it didn’t feel wrong. Being with a man who wasn’t my husband … it didn’t feel wrong. And I don’t know if I’ll ever want to have a husband again, but I want companionship. I want intimacy. As immature and elementary as it sounds … I do wonder why something that feels good on so many levels has so many rules. If it’s consensual … why is it wrong?”
“Well, the Bible says—”
I held my hand up to stop Rhonda’s interruption. “It was a rhetorical question. I know what the Bible says. I’ve read every single word in it. And I can interpret it to support whatever makes me feel good about my life. I mean … that’s why there are so many different takes and beliefs about God. Right? No one can prove there is a God. It’s faith. So I’m going to have a little faith that God gave me a brain to think, a heart to feel, and a conscience to do the right thing in a world where we don’t always know what that is. We are told to love one another. We are told to not judge. So I hope you can WWJD that when I walk out that door.”
I stood. “I miss him … Craig. The world was a better place with him in it. And I could have shared a million things I loved dearly about him. I could have convinced myself and everyone else that he was perfect and he was everything. But that would have been a lie. He wasn’t perfect, and he was a lot of things, but not everything. And to heal, I needed to let go of the things I didn’t like about him. And you—willingly or maybe not so willingly—let me do that. So … thank you for letting me be a part of your lives—your successes, your failures, your grief, and your realest moments. You are loved by me—unconditionally. I will always show you grace. I will always be a friend if you need one.”
A few of the other women shed tears with me as well. Not Rhonda. And not Tillie. That was okay. As mixed up as my emotions and feelings about life were in the moment, I knew one thing for sure—no two people shared the same journey. I wasn’t necessarily in a better place, just a different one.When I arrived home with groceries for Christmas with my kids, everyone’s car was parked in the driveway or on the street—just my kids and my parents, who Bella picked up from the airport two hours south of Epperly.